A stalwart in the Italian-American kitchen, lasagna, with its layers of boiled flat noodles usually encasing ricotta, mozzarella, and tomato sauce along with beef or sausage baked to a cheesy goodness, is the fifteenth most commonly seen items today at Italian restaurants in America. Lasagna as most restaurants serve it here is inspired from the pre-Lenten Carnival version from the Naples area from the past century. Here, it grew taller, meaty, much heartier, and more American. It became more firmly planted on menus over the years. Today, some restaurants proudly proclaim the number of layers of pasta in its versions. Chef Mark Ladner at the acclaimed Del Posto in New York even introduced an impossibly baroque 100-layer lasagne in 2009.
Lasagna only became widely found at restaurants in the 1950s, along with other baked pastas like cannelloni and manicotti. For years, it was spelled in the original Italian fashion as “lasagne.” Some restaurants have reverted to that name, offering what these calls Lasagne alla Bolognese. In its true form, this consists of wide strips of egg-rich freshly made pasta, often colored with spinach, layered in a pan with the long-cooked ragù alla Bolognese and judicious dollops of béchamel and then baked. Hearty but not enormous. This is one of the glories of the cooking of Bologna and the region of Emilia. It is distinct from the Neapolitan-originated lasagna, which is much more common in America. But on menus here, though it does appear in some restaurants, the name lasagne alla bolognese is often used rather fancifully.
Lasagna only became widely found at restaurants in the 1950s, along with other baked pastas like cannelloni and manicotti. For years, it was spelled in the original Italian fashion as “lasagne.” Some restaurants have reverted to that name, offering what these calls Lasagne alla Bolognese. In its true form, this consists of wide strips of egg-rich freshly made pasta, often colored with spinach, layered in a pan with the long-cooked ragù alla Bolognese and judicious dollops of béchamel and then baked. Hearty but not enormous. This is one of the glories of the cooking of Bologna and the region of Emilia. It is distinct from the Neapolitan-originated lasagna, which is much more common in America. But on menus here, though it does appear in some restaurants, the name lasagne alla bolognese is often used rather fancifully.
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